almon says:
Not sure I'd recommend this particular Joyce Carol Oates book, although I generally like her. It was long and sometimes a bit tedious. Interesting, but not believable. (I had trouble suspending disbelief.) There were many characters, including a number of famous people, presidents, artists, writers, none of whom were lovingly portrayed. There were no characters with whom the reader would ready identify.
ajbroadus says:
Imagine a story that encompassed time and illustrated pl
ace even more successfully than Doctrow's Ragtime. Time being 1905, Place being Princeton. Fold into this historical realism a rip in the fabric of consciousness similar to Alice's Wonderland only instead of a tumble down a rabbit hole, one is sucked into the Bog Kingdom filled with demons. Gothic. But rather than the predictable Southern Gothic, Oates explores the cognitive dissonance of very proper very educated very repressed people living under a very severe "Nordic" paternalism. Oates being Oates, the writing and story craft is stellar.
MoreLess
User Reviews: